Below is the text of Mr Major's written Parliamentary Answer on Expenditure Statistics on 13th November 1987.

Mr. Gordon Brown To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his estimate of expenditure in the latest year for which figures are available on(a) food, (b) fuel, (c) children's clothes and shoes, (d) books, newspapers and periodicals, (e) bus fares, (f) new house building and (g) funerals.

Mr. Major [holding answer, 12 November 1987] Some estimates of expenditure on the categories requested are compiled in the context of personal sector transactions recorded in national accounts, covering years up to 1986 and published in the 1987 edition of the United Kingdom national accounts, the ‘CSO Blue Book'. Total expenditure, which would include purchases by other sectors (for example, businesses) is not available.

Current and constant price estimates for expenditure on food, fuel and power, clothing and footwear, books, newspapers and magazines and buses and coaches are available from tables 4.7 and 4.8 of the CSO Blue Book. Spending on children's clothes and shoes is not separately identified. Current price estimates up to 1986 for expenditure on dwellings (excluding existing dwellings and land) are available from tables 12.1 and 12.3 of the CSO Blue Book.

The CSO Blue Book does not contain estimates of expenditure on funerals but available information suggests that undertakers' charges amounted to about £240 million at current prices in 1986.